Dow has outlined what it described as “a series of targeted actions aligned to its previously stated plan to achieve $1 billion in cost savings in 2023”. This is divided into $500 million each of ‘structural improvements’ and operating expense reductions. The measures include:

* About 2,000 job cuts to reduce labour and services costs

* Shutting down select assets, while further evaluating the asset base, particularly in Europe

* Increasing productivity via end-to-end process improvements

Cabot plans to invest about $75-90 million to add 15,000 tonnes/year of conductive carbon additives (CCA) capacity at its site in Pampa, Texas. This is part of planned investment programme in CCAs of about  $200 million in the US over the next five years that will use the grants, loans and tax incentives on offer from the federal government.

French greentech firm Afyren has signed a deal with Thailand’s Mitr Phol, the world’s third largest sugar producer, under which they will form a 70-30 joint venture to build a biorefinery at the latter’s site near Bangkok. This is Afyren’s first project outside France and follows on from a recent IPO.

OQ Chemicals has begun an optimisation and debottlenecking project for carboxylic acids at its plants in Germany. Structural work has already commenced, with completion planned before the end of the Q1. The acids are used as building blocks for lubricants, cosmetic ingredients and animal feed additives, among other things.

CordenPharma has signed a multi-year agreement for the contract manufacture of a large-volume launch peptide at its former Roche facility in Boulder, Colorado. This will begin in 2023 and will potentially be worth about $1 billion, depending on actual production levels required. The customer has not been named and no further details are being disclosed.

In response to an increasing number of projects, notably in oncology, Indian CRDMO Sai Life Sciences, has opened a 1,485 m² high potency API (HPAPI) facility at its cGMP API campus in Bidar. This follows on from the opening of an HPAPI development facility at the Hyderabad R&D campus.

The company said that this expands its expertise “across HPAPI development and manufacturing, providing its customers with a streamlined pathway for NCE development”. It will now be able to handle all aspects of the product life cycle.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC), the main trade body of the chemicals industry in the US, has issued a ‘9 in 9 Challenge’ to Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These challenges arise from the revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 2016.

The association is asking for action over the first nine months of 2023 to revise nine key policies, which, it says, are “weakening US chemicals management and the solutions to correct these problems”. They include:

* Fulfilling TSCA’s statutory obligations and meeting programme deadlines